Page:Keats, poems published in 1820 (Robertson, 1909).djvu/102

74 With duller steel than the Perséan sword They cut away no formless monster's head, But one, whose gentleness did well accord With death, as life. The ancient harps have said, Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord: If Love impersonate was ever dead, Pale Isabella kiss'd it, and low moan'd. 'Twas love; cold,—dead indeed, but not dethroned.

In anxious secrecy they took it home, And then the prize was all for Isabel: She calm'd its wild hair with a golden comb, And all around each eye's sepulchral cell Pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam With tears, as chilly as a dripping well, She drench'd away:—and still she comb'd, and kept Sighing all day—and still she kiss'd, and wept.